The present invention relates generally to the field of trophy assembly and construction, more particularly to components that can be more rapidly secured together to facilitate more rapid construction. In other aspects the invention relates to components that can be more rapidly assembled or disassembled by utilizing connectors that reversibly engage components. Thus components may be designed to snap together, reversibly come apart, or utilize a snap or twisting motion to engage and disengage. In other aspects the invention relates to using one or more types of connectors on one or more of the trophy components, including a connector base of the present invention, to utilize multiple types of connectors to facilitate rapid construction.
For example, a trophy may comprise a base, riser and or stem, and a top or cap with one or more decorative extrusions/injections placed between, and a figure, award or other design mounted thereon. The base may also include only a figure or other award design thereon. The figure or award design is typically a three dimensional model of a representative sporting element like a soccer ball, a cheerleader, an auto, or other emblem representative of a particular activity. The trophy construction is typically secured by a threaded rod extending through the individual parts of the entire assembly which directly or through use of a nut, sleeve or ferrule retains the figure in position.
Inexpensive trophies are conventionally made with extruded and/or injection molded plastic or metal parts. Typically the riser, extrusions and figure are made of injection molded plastic with a gold or silver appearance. The decorative extrusion may also be plated or foiled attractively to enhance the appearance of the trophy.
The generally accepted and traditional method of securing the award or figure to the trophy is by a threaded stud extending from the figure, which is screwed into a ferrule attached to a threaded rod. The threaded rod is then used to secure the parts together into a final product. To provide the figure with a threaded stud, during the injection process a metal screw or bolt is placed in the mold first before the material is injected. Once cured, the figure is extracted from the mold with the threaded stud in place. The piece may then proceed to coloring prior to inventory. In order to maintain quality and interest buyers, the figure, riser and other parts are generally manufactured separately.
Production of the molds is a very expensive process for the manufacturer. Each figure requires a separate mold and there are hundreds of figures available on the market. To reduce the need to produce new molds to take advantage of the present invention, an adapter comprising the features of the present invention is provided to screw onto the pre-existing threaded stud of the award. The adapter then functions to enable the rapid connection advantage of the present invention by allowing figures with threaded studs to be adapted to the preassembled trophy of the present invention. The preassembled trophy having the mating connector in place. The adapter could be made of a substantially rigid or substantially resilient material. Any place there is a protruding connecting member from a trophy part, an adapter of the present invention may be fashioned to take advantage of the rapid connection of the present invention. For example the protruding member could be threaded, splined, keyed, knurled, smooth or of other geometry sufficient to provide surface area for attachment of such an adapter.
In prior art constructions, it was normally necessary to identify the use of the trophy prior to construction, in order to place an order for a figure appropriate to the need. This requires that all the components of a trophy are kept in inventory waiting for assembly. Once the order is received from the customer, the retailer must then order all of the individual parts and assemble them. The retailers do not typically have large numbers of parts on hand but instead rely upon quick delivery methods to obtain the parts from a supplier and then assemble the trophy on site. However, the supplier must keep large numbers of individual parts on hand to meet any demand. Thus the supplier has increased costs for inventory and the retailer has increased costs of labor for assembly. From the time the customer places the order until completion and delivery can be many hours, a week or more. The advent of just-in-time order and delivery has made the rapid construction of trophies from individual parts a necessity. Retailers demand it from suppliers since customers are placing an increased demand for a quick turn-around time based upon their needs.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,670 (1960) attempted to avoid the problems associated with a threaded figure attachment by providing a simple device for mounting a FIG. 16 on a preconstructed trophy base 14 in a secure manner insuring against inadvertent removal. '670 addressed this problem by use of an adapter bushing 42 with a smooth bore 49 secured to a threaded elongated bolt 32. Said adapter bushing 42 was designed to accept a split sleeve fitting 48 placed around the figure threaded bolt 20 to cover the threads. Thus rotational force was minimized or eliminated upon attachment of the FIG. 16. The FIG. 16 was held in tight-fitting non-rotational relationship with the bore 49 of the bushing 42 by tongues 58 constructed with crimps 64 and an outwardly turned edge 60 to frictionally engage the side of the bore 49. However, one disadvantage of this arrangement was that in order to change the FIG. 16 it was necessary to disassemble the trophy and disengage the fitting 48 after removal of the elongated bolt 32 from the bushing 42. '670 provided a relatively rapid method for placing, but it was not removable without disassembly and thus did not reduce the amount of time or effort needed to remove or replace the figure. Because of these disadvantages it was never widely used in the industry and is not available today.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,727 (1967) provided a selectable parts trophy body construction based upon a cup-shaped body member 11 in the preferred embodiment. Said body member 11 was reversibly attached to an upper adapter member 14 by use of tongue 47 and groove 46 elements, and to a lower adapter member 14 by tongue 71 and groove 72. However, the figure and base were attached using the standard threaded stud or bolt construction. Thus '727 provided a convenient way of interchanging trophy body parts that could be shaped to incorporate exterior tongue and groove fasteners, but did not address the problem of the construction noted above where the body parts were connected by a central threaded bolt. Because of these disadvantages it was never widely used in the industry and is not available today.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,739 (1994) illustrated the use of resilient locking fingers 58 of plastic material on a trophy lid 18 to engage slots 56 in a riser 14 to simplify trophy construction where separate risers 14 and die cast lids 18 could be easily and securely connected together. However, '739 continued to rely upon a threaded sleeve 30 attached to the usual central threaded rod member 24 to mate with the threaded projection 42 of the figurine 22 and retain it in place. '739 did not use or claim said locking fingers 58 to attach any parts other than the lid and riser. Although a lid is shown and claimed between the decorative extrusion 16 and the figurine 22, the only retaining mechanism employed to hold the lid on the extrusion, and the figurine on the lid, was the threaded rod member 24, not resilient locking fingers 58. Thus '739 teaches only that trophy lids and risers can be aligned quickly and easily by resilient locking fingers, but still require a threaded bolt to secure the assembly. Plus, the additional time and effort required to change a figurine or other trophy part secured by a threaded bolt was not improved. Because of these disadvantages it was never widely used in the industry and is not available today.
The prior art method is labor, cost and time intensive, obviating the need for more efficient trophy assembly. Another disadvantage is that it is common for suppliers and/or retailers to have to disassemble completed trophies because of order cancellation or the customer wants to change the figure. Then new parts must be procured and the assembly completed again by carefully aligning all of the parts before the threaded rod is tightened. The present invention provides the supplier or retailer the ability to buy completely preassembled trophies and then only have to attach selected risers and/or figures, or the remove the existing part and replace it.
Secondly, the present invention reduces the inventory requirements thus reducing cost and yet enhancing deliverability. For example, a base, column and connector may be preassembled by the manufacturer or supplier. The customer chooses the preassembled trophy and matches an appropriate figure. Upon receipt of these parts, typically by just-in-time delivery, the retailer can rapidly construct the finished trophy by attaching the figure to the pre-assembled trophy and the piece is ready for pick-up by the customer. It is also possible in the manner of the present invention that the retailer may carry certain popular preassembled trophies in inventory along with various rapid connecting figures, and/or other decorative parts, and complete the order while the customer waits. Thus the retailer does not have to incur the time and labor cost of assembly of all of the individual parts, and provides more rapid service to the customer. To further reduce cost the trophy assembly could be completed in a market with lower labor costs, and that cost saving could be passed along to the supplier and ultimately the consumer.
The configuration of the connecting member may provide a reversible or non-reversible connection. One example of a reversible connecting adaptation is the use of twist and lock elements that reversibly engage. Any of the connecting members of the present invention may be configured to reversibly or non-reversibly engage. In addition, the various types of connectors of the present invention could be configured on any trophy component. Thus, a trophy could be completely preassembled by using these connectors on each component without the traditional centrally threaded rod.
For those manufacturers who do not want to incur the cost of new molds for their many figures, yet desire to take advantage of the rapid connection feature of the present invention, an adapter and base connector as described above could be quickly employed.
To further increase the options for manufacture or assembly, the connector base already configured to receive the rapid connection could be configured to have a central bore into which either a threaded nut, bolt or insert could be located to receive one end of the prior art threaded bolt. An advantage of such a configuration allows the manufacturer or assembler to decide at the time of assembly whether to use a nut, bolt or other insert depending upon the availability of parts, design, cost or other deciding factor.
With the present disclosure it is now possible to have on hand a preassembled trophy which a supplier or retailer may easily modify into a wide variety of trophies using only a limited number of parts.
It is therefore apparent that there is a need for an improved way to assemble or construct trophies and it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus and methods of construction and doing business to meet these needs.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a simplified construction in which separate risers, extrusions, and figures can be easily and securely connected together without the use of a threaded bolt.
It is further object of the present invention to provide a simplified construction of trophy parts where alignment of the parts may be preconfigured by the positioning of the connecting member and the mating receptacle.
It is a further object of this invention to provide apparatus to adapt trophy construction having threaded type connectors to rapid connection configuration to take advantage of the features of the present invention.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method of business of supplying a trophy comprising a preassembled trophy construction including a rapid connector of the present invention, and a rapid connecting riser and/or figure or other decorative part of the present invention.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be made clear to those skilled in the art by the following description of the presently preferred embodiments thereof.